Seussical
From Free net encyclopedia
Seussical is a musical based on the books of Dr. Seuss that debuted on Broadway in 2000. The play's story is a rather complex amalgamation of many of Seuss' most famous books.
The basic plot is the same as Horton Hears a Who!, and centers on Horton the elephant's quest to save the people of Who-ville, who live on a tiny speck of dust. It also features characters and scenarios from many other Seuss books, including the Butter Side Uppers / Downers from The Butter Battle Book, Gertrude McFuzz from Gertrude McFuzz, and some characters that never made an appearance in any of Dr. Seuss's books. Although the story focuses around Horton, The Cat in the Hat plays the main character, who is also the narrator.
In all, the following Seuss books have some characters and / or settings are incorporated into the play:
- Horton Hears a Who!
- How the Grinch Stole Christmas
- The Lorax
- Green Eggs and Ham
- Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories
- Horton Hatches the Egg
- I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew
- McElligot's Pool
- The One Feather Tail of Miss Gertrude McFuzz
- Hunches in Bunches
- If I Ran the Circus
- The Butter Battle Book
- Oh, the Thinks You Can Think!
- The Cat in the Hat
- The Sneetches and Other Stories
- Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are?
The play was not very successful and did not stay on Broadway for very long. While it has experienced some success off Broadway, having been performed by regional theatres, high schools, and colleges (especially in the western U.S.), many instrumentalists feel the music lacks more than the same few melodies in different variations and awkward keys.
Story
Warning: Plot and/or Ending Spoilers Below
The story begins with a small boy, played by either a male or a female (but will be referred to as a he for the remainder of this article), finding a hat on the stage, and then 'thinking' up the Cat in the Hat, who is, as he puts it 'The Host and Emcee' of the play. The Cat creates the Seussian world around him and the boy, and he acts as the narrator for the remainder of the musical, as well as playing some of the minor roles. A jungle, called The Jungle of Nool, appears around them, and then Horton the Elephant enters the stage. From this point, the plot completely mirrors Horton Hears a Who!, with many lines and lyrics taken, verbatim, from the story, up until the focus shifts from Horton and the Jungle of Nool, to the world of Who, where the boy is dropped in as the character of Jojo. When the focus changes, the situation on Who is outlined. The Whos are on the brink of war (A la the Butter Battle Book), their skies are 'unbearably dark', and on the Truffula Trees on the other side of Whoville were all cut down (a la The Lorax.) From there, the story touches on works like "McElligot's Pool" and "The Butter Battle Book". Jojo, the son of the Mayor of Whoville, is scorned by his parents because he was causing trouble at school by thinking, which disrupts the entire class. Jojo blames the Cat for all of this, until the Cat dissuades him with another think while he is in the tub (the think itself is also verbatim from the book McElligot's Pool.) During this 'think', however, Jojo floods the Mayor's house, and is then sent to bed. The Mayor and his Wife wonder what they can do to set their son straight, and they, after receiving a brochure from the Cat, decide to send him into the Army, under the supervision of General Ghengis Khan Shmitz (A Character in I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew).
Once Jojo is sent into the army, the story goes back to Horton, who has been guarding the clover for 'over a week', getting ridiculed by the Citizens of the Jungle. After the song 'Alone in the Universe', Jojo and Horton meet, and talk to each other, and relate how their troublesome dilemmas. Then Horton heads off, and Jojo goes to sleep, only to be woken up by the Cat, as he introduces Getrude McFuzz into the story. Gertrude, Horton's Neighbor, has started to fall in love with Horton, but feels as if she cannot approach him because of her one feather tail (The One Feather Tail of Miss Gertrude McFuzz) She then talks to Mayzie La Bird, an extravagant bird, who tells her that she once had a tail like Mayzie's, and that she was able to become so extravagant by taking pills from a Doctor named Dake. Gertrude, wanting to get Horton's attention, goes to Doctor Dake (played by the Cat), who gives her the pills to give her a giant tail. Then the focus returns to Horton, who is still guarding the clover. He is ambushed by the Wickersham Brothers (a group of mischievous monkeys) who steal the clover and run off with it. Horton gives chase, until the monkeys give the clover to a black-bottomed bird named Vlad Vladikoff. Horton continues to chase the clover, until Vlad drops it into a large patch of identical clovers, 'one hundred miles wide'. Horton begins to look for the clover, hoping that the Whos are still alive, when Gertrude catches up with him. She tries to catch his attention, but he is too busy looking for the Whos to notice her. After searching 2,999,999 clovers, Horton loses hope, and he sees Mayzie La Bird high in a nest. Apparently, she was in Fort Worth, when she met a Night Owl named Tweet McFirth. After 'three weeks of bliss', Tweet left her with an egg. Mayzie then persuades Horton to give up on the search for the Whos and sit on her egg while she goes off for a vacation. Horton reluctantly agrees, and Mayzie flies off. Horton waits on the egg for months, until finally he is captured by hunters. Gertrude makes an attempt to go after Horton, but the size and weight of her new tail prevents her from flying.
Then Horton is sold to a man from the circus (If I Ran the Circus). After going on the road and 'performing for nuts', Horton meets up with Mayzie again, and tries to give the egg back to her. She refuses, and wishes him good luck when it hatches, then leaves. Horton then resigns himself to protecting the egg, believing that he failed Who and he let Jojo down. Then he sings the egg a lullabye (I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew)At this point, it is revealed that the whos are still alive, but a little worse for the wear. Jojo, the Mayor, and the Mayor's Wife, all coincidentally singing about Solla Sollew with Horton. Then, in the Battle of Butter, Jojo decides to leave the force, giving up his sword and his hat. He leaves the General, and then accidentally steps on a mine. The General assumes that Jojo died in the explosion, and heads back to Whoville to tell the Mayor that Jojo was lost. However, Jojo did not die in the battle, and finds himself in a dark place, and he does not know where to go. After confronted by the Cat and the Hunches (Hunches in Bunches), Jojo finds his way home. At the same time, Gertrude sneaks into the Circus, her tail plucked out to allow her to fly, and frees Horton, confessing her love for him in a very dramatic (often times intentionally performed to be overly dramatic and overdone) song, then also showing that she found the Clover with the Whos. Horton is delighted, until their moment is interrupted by the Sour Kangaroo, who makes a citizen's arrest on Horton, and drags him back, with the help of the Wickershams, to the Jungle of Nool. Then he is put on trial for 'Disturbing the Peace', 'Talking to a Clover', and 'Loitering...on an Egg'. The Cat plays the bailiff and 'Judge Yertle the Turtle' (from Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories) presides over the case. Gertrude and Horton make a stand at the case, but the court is against them, and Horton is eventually remanded to the Home for the Criminally Insane, and the Clover is to be boiled in a kettle of Beezlenut Oil. Horton encourages the Whos to make as much noise as they can, to make themselves heard, but nothing works, until Jojo comes up with a new word, 'YOPP', which reverberates throughout the world and makes everyone aware of the Whos. The court has a change of heart, and the Sour Kangaroo decides to protect the clover with Horton. Then Jojo is honored as Thinker Non-Stop. Then the egg hatches, and it is, to the surprise of everyone, a Elephant-Bird. Horton panics, asking Gertrude how he is supposed to raise the child. Gertrude answers with a reprise of Alone in the Universe, with changed wording.
Gertrude: I have wings, yes, I can fly, you teach him earth, and I will teach him sky.
Horton and Gertrude take the egg, and they leave. The whole scene fades away, and all that is left is the boy from the beginning. He walks up to the hat, and pulls it over his head, resulting in a blackout. Then there is a curtain call, done to a fast-paced song (the Lyrics are taken from Green Eggs and Ham).